


Atlas

by PrincessOfNothingCharming



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canon Compliant, F/M, Gen, Season/Series 01, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-13
Updated: 2018-01-13
Packaged: 2019-03-04 04:38:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13356675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrincessOfNothingCharming/pseuds/PrincessOfNothingCharming
Summary: Clarke is ten the first time she recognizes the messy scrawl for what it is. The story of Atlas starts at her wrist, just below her left thumb, and circles around and around until it reaches the crease of her elbow. And she knows, with perfect clarity, that this is her soulmate.





	Atlas

**Author's Note:**

> This story is very, very different in style and tone from my other story. I am in love with soulmate AUs, and I have been dying to write this forever. I really hope you guys like it because I've been working on it forever! Either way, thank you so much for reading!

Clarke is ten the first time she recognizes the messy scrawl for what it is. The story of Atlas starts at her wrist, just below her left thumb, and circles around and around until it reaches the crease of her elbow. Her skin tingles, like the light tickle of her hair against her bare skin every evening when she steps into the shower. And she knows, with perfect clarity, that this is her soulmate.

She hears the steps of her parents approaching her room, and she quickly darts beneath the covers, a fake cough on her lips. Abby doesn’t believe her for a second, tugging at the blankets that Clarke has clenched tightly in her dainty hands. Jake’s eyes soften with mischief and he coughs into his elbow, “Oh I think I’m coming down with something too. Clarke and I should probably stay home together today.”

Abby’s eyeroll isn’t lost on her husband when he quickly adds, “So it doesn’t spread, of course.”

“Oh of course,” she answers dryly. 

Clarke’s parents kiss her forehead, and her father shoots her a wink, on their way out the door. A half hour later Clarke’s wearing long sleeves and curling into her father’s side on the simple couch. She hesitates, pulling tight on her sleeves to keep her arm hidden.

“Daddy, who is Atlas?” She knows the answer, of course. She’s read the words written in messy scrawl across her arm, but the story there is simple and missing details she wishes she was old enough to understand. She wishes her soulmate would explain it to her.

Jake’s brow furrows. His eyes are a little too knowing, a little too inquisitive. They don’t own a single book on mythology, and he doubts she’s learning about Atlas in her Earth Skills or Math classes.

“Never mind,” she mumbles, a little too quickly. She buries her face into his arm and pretends to fall asleep, never loosening her grip on the sleeve of her shirt.

The words are gone the next morning.

***

For three years Clarke doesn’t so much as leave a smudge of ink on her skin. Her left arm is a blank sheet of paper and every few nights it fills with stories she’s never heard before. She traces the words with her index finger in the privacy of her room and tells not a single soul about it. Not even her best friend Wells. 

She’s not ashamed of her soulmate or anything. But his or her existence leaves a warm feeling in Clarke’s stomach that she isn’t quite ready to share with anyone else. The stories are hers – stories of heroes and monsters and gods. She saves up her rations for weeks to buy a book on mythology, and the first story she reads is about Atlas. She never reads ahead, even when the worn pages of her book are calling out to her. Instead she waits until her soulmate breaches a certain topic before letting herself be immersed in the details. 

***

Clarke is 14 the first time she lets a message of her own spread across her skin. Her arm has been empty for three days, and she misses the messy words she keeps hidden under long sleeves. With the multicolored pens Wells gives her for her birthday, she draws Atlas along her left arm. His design is simple, but the celestial globe in his hands is anything but. In every color she has, she copies the pictures from her book.  
In a faraway part of the Ark, a pair of wide, innocent eyes studies the drawing. His long fingers slide over the ink, mesmerized. For the first time in a long time he thinks that maybe he doesn’t have to carry the weight of the heavens alone anymore. 

He loves his sister, and he would move Heaven and Earth for her. But when the rumble of Octavia’s stomach is louder than his own and he passes her the rest of his rations, he sometimes wonders what his life could have been. The thought is too gruesome, too selfish. He buries it deep in his mind – deeper even than the hate he feels every time he sees a guard’s hand linger just a little too long on his mother’s back during inspection.

He grabs a pen to write back, but Octavia is there before he can, innocently asking about the drawing. She would be so happy for him; some small part of him knows that, but somehow it seems cruel to tell her. He lies instead, pulls his sleeve down, and tells her the story of Atlas all over again. It doesn’t seem fair for him to have a soulmate when his sister isn’t even allowed to know another person.  
Bellamy doesn’t write back that night. Or any night for the next 3 months. 

Octavia gets the flu, and he lies to Dr. Griffin in the hopes of bringing home some medicine. Waiting makes him anxious. He’s digging the toe of his falling-apart shoes into the thick metal of the floor when he hears Dr. Griffin talking to her daughter. He doesn’t know her name, but he knows who she is instantly. Ark’s golden princess. With her perfect clothes and not a smudge of dirt or grease anywhere on her. He doesn’t know her, but he hates her.

Luckily Dr. Griffin’s assistant is the one to diagnose him, so he heads back to his tiny living space with the medicine held tight in his fist. That night he writes stories of Artemis across his left arm. He snuggles Octavia close and reads the words off of his arm as he lulls her to sleep. 

Just as he’s nodding off, he spots a small bow in the crook of his elbow. It feels a little like getting away with something. For once in his life, Bellamy has something that is undeniably his. Unable to help himself, he smiles.

***

They never address each other directly, but soon every story he writes is surrounded by illustrations. And on the days he’s too tired from his guard duty to read to Octavia, his soulmate fills his skin with stories of his or her own. It is never words, just drawings of constellations, gods, and the occasional flower. 

It all stops the day his sister gets discovered at the dance. Octavia is locked up, his mother is floated, and Bellamy stops answering the drawings on his arm. After three of weeks of silence she – he’s sure now from the careful slant of her handwriting that it’s a girl – writes three words that break his heart even more than it already is. 

I miss you.

He scrubs at his skin until it’s raw, but still the words don’t come off. They last for three days before his soulmate washes them away. She never stops drawing; every single day there is something new on his skin after that. She doesn’t know him, and he doesn’t know her, but he’s grateful to know that there is someone out there he cares about that he hasn’t sentenced to death. 

Until one day his arm is blank. And it stays that way. For one full year

***

The ground is beautiful, warm, and enticing in every way Clarke ever dreamed it would be. But Wells is dead. And now so is Charlotte. 

Her knees are cold from the damp dirt of his grave, but she can barely feel it. Eyes dry and mouth a thin line, she reaches into her pocket for the colored pencil Finn gave her. She rolls it slowly between her fingers, bottom lip quivering as she presses it to her skin.

The pencil leaves nothing behind, just like she knew it wouldn’t, and the sob Clarke lets out is animalistic in sound. For all she knows, he was floated that year she was in solitary. She had never even spoken to him (or her) but fuck, she loved him. With Artemis and Athena and Hades on her side, she had never been alone.

Leaves crunch behind her. She reacts far too slowly, glancing back to find Bellamy looking at her with something akin to sympathy in his eyes. She straightens her spine, stands, and ignores the burning of her cheeks, “What?”

“You’re outside the gate alone,” he reminds her, mild. He looks ready to say more, but Clarke just pushes past him. She doesn’t want whatever empty words he could give her – if he would even try – his stories aren’t the ones she’s craving.

“Atlas,” Bellamy says quietly.

Clarke freezes, turns, and follows his gaze. She’d drawn him in the dirt of Wells’ grave as a reminder of what comfort she’s missing. Swallowing hard, she shrugs and turns back to camp. 

For a moment there, she’d thought… but it couldn’t be.

***

Dax is dead at their feet, his stomach and chest are both bruised, and Clarke is gazing at him like she’s terrified he’s going to take off at any moment. He bows his head back against the tree and the silence is heavy as the last of the jobi nuts make their way out of his and Clarke’s systems. 

“You know, I used to believe I was like Atlas-“ he doesn’t notice the sharp look she gives him, eyes closed against the outside world, “I had to take care of my mom and O. I couldn’t have friends. I couldn’t date. I gave most of my rations to O. It all felt like too much to carry.”

“And now you have an entire camp to look after,” her voice is thick with emotion. It is so easy for him to forget sometimes that she’s still just barely 18.

He nods and digs his fingers into the dirt, wondering if he will ever feel clean again. It doesn’t seem likely. “I used to read her stories of the gods. I loved mythology. I love the way it feels both bigger and smaller than our own lives. Or at least it used to.”

Clarke swallows hard, visibly gulping, “When did it change?”

Bellamy frowns and looks down at his fingers, “I think my soulmate died. After O was found. And even if she didn’t… I’m on Earth. She’s not.”

“How do you know?”

He tries to meet her eye, but she won’t look away from Dax’s body now. He wishes desperately that they were anywhere but here. Anywhere but this moment.

Clarke doesn’t feel the same. Her fingers are itching for ink and she can practically feel her skin tingling. She brushes her fingers over her arm, both disappointed and a little excited to find it empty. 

“Maybe your soulmate is down here waiting for you,” Clarke whispers. She sees his disbelief and smiles, 

“She’ll find you, Bellamy. When she’s ready.”

***

Clarke isn’t ready for at least six months. There are cabins to be built, jobs to assign, and a new government to form. Peace with the grounders takes longer than she hoped it would, but when all is said and done, their people are happy.

She mixes the paints Lincoln showed her how to make, dipping a homemade brush into the thick liquid. She smooths it effortlessly across her arm, constellations taking form against her skin. She draws his favorites, the ones she remembers being inspiration for his stories. The one he told her the night they walked back to camp after killing Dax. 

The paint dries and Clarke lies down in the warm grass to watch the real constellations. 

Clarke smiles to herself when she hears footsteps approach. He lies down next to her, a full foot away, and she doesn’t bother to hide her amused grin as she wiggles closer. 

Their fingers touch, just barely, and then he draws away again. He’s like a spooked animal, shying away from any sound or touch. She laughs around his name, barely audible, “Bellamy..”

“How long?” he asks.

Clarke sits up, sliding onto her knees in front of him. He’s still lying there, uncertainty on his face as she draws closer. She tugs him up with her left arm, and he shudders when her fingers touch the fresh painting on his skin, “Since our first day trip together. I wasn’t ready,” she whispers.

“But you are now?”

She pauses, taking his hand and lifting it to her lips. There’s a small scar there, and she smiles against it before pressing a kiss to his wrist next. 

They’ve never done this before – kissed each other – in any capacity. But fuck, she’s been waiting for him since she was just a kid and he was just her storyteller. They’ve fought wars together and both killed and saved countless lives.

They’ve loved each other in every way but this one.

No, she loves him in this way too.

Swallowing back her fear, she cups his cheek and smiles at the wonder that crosses his face as he studies her skin. Her lips brush his, just a whisper of a kiss, and she speaks close enough that he can feel her lips move with each word, “Your stories changed my life, Bellamy. I couldn’t let myself want this until-“

“Until what?” he cuts her off, voice shaky and uncertain even as his eyes drop to her lips.

“Until it was settled. Until I knew I could do this properly. Until I was sure that I lo-“ she pauses, voice cracking a little with her remaining words, “that I loved you for you and not just because the universe said I should.”

She sees the smile forming, and he seems to be trying so hard not to kiss her again, “And you’re sure now?”

“You’re my best friend,” she whispers in answer. It’s enough.

He kisses her then, fingers curling into her hair as he adjusts to the feeling of her. They’re both smiling way too much for the kiss to be perfect, but somehow that’s even better. The knowledge that neither of them can even pretend not to be happy is the best thing either of them knows.

“I love you too,” he whispers finally.

They lie there together for hours, Clarke’s eyes fluttering as he regales her with tale after tale of mischievous gods, princesses saving themselves from towers, and the story of the sky princess who stole the heart of a lonely Atlas.

She’s glad she never let her father explain the stories on her arm – somehow they all sound so much better on Bellamy’s lips.


End file.
